India may add 6,000 MW wind power capacity in FY'18: IWTMA

"The govt's target (for the 2017-18) I think is 4,500 MW. We know that we have number of challenges in front of us, but we will try our best to give around 6,000 (MW) in the current financial year," IWTMA Chairman said.PTI | April 12, 2017, 19:00 IST

NEW DELHI: India may add around 6,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power capacity in the ongoing fiscal, an industry body has said.

"The government's target (for the 2017-18) I think is 4,500 MW. We know that we have number of challenges in front of us, but we will try our best to give around 6,000 (MW) in the current financial year," Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturing Association (IWTMA) Chairman Sarvesh Kumar said here.

"Like last year, the target was 4,000 MW, but we did 5,500 MW," Kumar told reporters here.

Elaborating on the challenges, he said that "you know that competitive bidding took place for only 1,000 MW. We have requested the Centre to go for at least 4,000 to 5,000 MW of competitive bidding so that we have an absolute clear vision in front of us," Kumar added.

The leading states in wind power capacity addition during 2016-17 were Andhra Pradesh (2,190 MW), Gujarat (1,275 MW) and Karnataka (882 MW).

During 2016-17, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) took various policy initiatives in the wind energy sector, including introduction of bidding, re-powering policy, draft wind-solar hybrid policy and new guidelines for development of wind power projects.

“To save the environment and to fight climate change, my government has planned a major campaign. By 2022, we want to generate 175 GW of renewable energy. In the last three years, we have already achieved 60 GW or around one-third of this target,” he said.